Memory Like the Rain
by Midorino Mizu
Summary: It's raining again. 8558


Memory Like the Rain  
  
Midorino Mizu  
  
Disclaimer: Saiyuki, etc., is property of Minekura Kazuya, Studio Pierrot, ADV, and other people who are not I.  
  
Author's Note: This fic didn't behave itself when I was writing it, and as such, didn't come off quite the way I envisioned it. I'm posting it anyway. Also, there may be some inaccuracies. I haven't watched Saiyuki for some time, and I didn't rewatch episode sixteen before I started this.  
  
Which reminds me. There are spoilers here for Episode 16. And happy 85/58 subtext.  
  
It was raining again.  
  
That was to be expected, mused Hakkai. It was, after all, the wet season, and it had been raining at least four days out of seven for a couple of weeks now. The relentless downpours had usually stopped before nightfall, however.  
  
Several times in the past weeks, he thought that he'd heard Sanzo breathe a sigh of relief when the heavy storm clouds broke apart before sunset. It always was a light sigh, almost a normal breath, but recognizable to Hakkai.  
  
He knew that he appreciated the measure of peace that the clear night brought. He didn't have to remember, not when the stars were shining.  
  
Tonight was different.  
  
It had been raining since early in the morning, and they had been soaked to the skin by the time they arrived at a town large enough to boast an inn.  
  
They dried off, ate hot food and drank beer, and played mah jong to while away the hours before nightfall.  
  
The rain didn't stop. It was a hopeless sort of downpour, gray water pouring endlessly out of the sky and pounding onto the ground with unforgiving force.  
  
***  
  
It had been raining like this on that night, too.  
  
It had been cold, and he'd been soaked to the skin when he'd finally arrived at his destination.  
  
He had been shaking. He wasn't sure if it was from the freezing water he'd run through, or from rage.  
  
He thought that it had probably been rage, considering what he did that night.  
  
The blood had poured down the walls as easily as the rain had been falling from the sky.  
  
When he'd finally found his sister, her eyes had said first that she knew what he was, and that it was more than she could bear.  
  
That had cleared the red haze of blood and anger from his mind like nothing else could have.  
  
Cho Gonou had taken her knife from her limp hand, and tried to destroy his memory by taking out his eye.  
  
He succeeded at neither objective.  
  
Afterwards he had stumbled, water and blood-soaked, back out into the night. His only immediate objective was to get away.  
  
When his head started to clear, his objective was to die.  
  
Only in death, he rationalized, could he atone for what he had done to Kanan, for destroying the illusions he'd constructed for them.  
  
Because if that rain-soaked night had accomplished nothing else, it had shown Cho Gonou that their happy lives had only been elaborate constructions.  
  
Gonou had walked on, without any aim except some vague notion of death. Some previously unrecognized instinct told him he was being hunted.  
  
He had no desire to elude whoever would grant his last desire.  
  
Eventually, after walking for forever, he collapsed in the muddy road, the cold rain still pounding down on his body.  
  
When he woke, he was dry. And the first thing he saw was a tall man nodding off in a chair. His long hair obscured his face.  
  
Gonou loved that hair. It was beautiful and crimson, and it reminded him of the blood cascading down the walls.  
  
It reminded him of what he needed to remember.  
  
When Gonou had said that, his rescuer had looked surprised, and then sad. It was the sort of sorrow that overlaid pain. Gonou was familiar with it, not only from the events of that night, but also from the pain of his childhood.  
  
Neither of them, he mused, had been given much happiness, and it had undoubtedly wrought changes in both of them.  
  
He had become a monster, he thought with a bitter twist of his lips. He wouldn't ask what it had done to the man before him.  
  
A youkai, he noted, catching a glimpse of silver ear clips under the fall of bright hair.  
  
He flicked his eyes away from them quickly, resisting the urge to touch his own ear clips. His, unlike this man's, were new.  
  
He ate the food the man, named Sha Gojyo, presented him, and pretended to fall back asleep. Gonou didn't want to involve any strangers, no matter how nice, in his life. He had things he would face alone.  
  
When Gojyo fell asleep himself, Gonou slipped out the door.  
  
It was still raining.  
  
He walked purposefully this time, seeking rather than accepting.  
  
He met his hunter met him on the road. A Buddhist monk, surprisingly young, and equally surprisingly beautiful.  
  
His red-haired savior tried to save him again, but in the end he went off with the blond monk.  
  
He returned days later, with a new name.  
  
He came back to Sha Gojyo's house, not because he didn't have anywhere else to go (though he didn't), but because it seemed to be the place he should be.  
  
He knocked on the door this time around, and pasted a smile on his face.  
  
It wasn't, he reflected, raining anymore.  
  
***  
  
The rain poured down still, thought Hakkai as he stared out the window into the gray night. He imagined that Sanzo hadn't slept on this night, either.  
  
He heard light footsteps behind him, and his lips curved into a small smile, but he remained silent.  
  
"It's nearly dawn," said a gruff voice behind him. Gojyo's usually smooth voice was rough with sleep."  
  
"Yes," acknowledged Hakkai softly. "You should go back to sleep."  
  
"No point now," commented Gojyo. "It's practically morning, and the damned monk will make us get an early start, anyway.  
  
"Besides," he added softly as he laid his hands on Hakkai's narrow shoulders. "There's something beautiful about dawn in the middle of a storm."  
  
"Yes," said Hakkai, as he leaned back towards Gojyo. "There is."  
  
~fin 


End file.
